And that's the problem with the salary cap. We could get him for sure if we threw enough money at him, but then we'd be paying him more than he's worth. If we're paying overs then the rest of the squad won't be up to scratch. The vicious circle continues.
Buying stars is not the way forward for a club like ours. We need to find a proven hard merkin at the end of his career (i.e. we need to take a risk) like when Des brought Ben Kennedy to Manly in '05. He had missed 35 games to injury over the previous three years, so he was a risk, but a risk that paid off. And because of his age and his injury history there wouldn't have been too much interest in him, keeping his price reasonable.
This is the kind of risk we need to take, not throwing half our salary cap at a star in his prime, that every club wants.
I see what you're saying.
In my opinion, we are lacking two things:
(1) leadership [imo Hayne is improving as a captain, but we are lacking a forward leader]; and
(2) a big, aggressive, powerful prop a la JWH. While the whole Roosters pack contributed, he showed why explosive and aggressive props are so vital IMO.
We have Lussick who can go a way to fixing issue (2), but I don't think he's explosive enough. He has the size and aggression, but look at how JWH catapults himself into the line, and watch how he smashes people in D.
We were outclassed and outmuscled, but the worrying thing for me is that we don't have a winning mentality. Obviously winning two spoons in consecutive years affects that, but we simply need to do better. I mean, I'm probably biased and optimistic, but the way we finished that first half made me think we could make a genuine fist of the match. And then they capitulated.
It saddens me to say it, because they're two of my favourite players, but Smith and Moimoi need to move on.
Tonga had a shocker - a one-off, perhaps? We will see.
Edwards was ineffective, but it's to be expected, playing way put of position.
Paulo...he did some good things, but why does nobody push up in support when he runs the ball? On at least three occasions he ran and exposed gaps, but nobody was running off him. It's irritating, because then he gets tackled and he's only run sideways - but had somebody been running off him, we would have had a full or half break on our hands.
Ma'u tried hard but was largely average.
Tanginoa got no time.
Mannah was poor.
Allgood...#facepalm
Semi and Vai are young and tried hard, and they added something, but the way we were tore to shreds, they can't do much.
Hopoate was strong.
Normand and Kelly were dreadful. Wrong options, poor kicking and poor defence, to boot.
Hayne...tried hard but didn't lead the side. Going Ito half-time, we were hitting our straps. We should have come out of the break really pumped, and we blew it.
I don't know what the answers are, but I'm envious of the Roosters for that pack.
